What’s On this week in Edinburgh
MONDAY 30TH MAY 2016
Edinburgh Steiner School Class 12 Exhibition: come and see the fantastic work of the school’s Advanced Higher Art students. 9am-7pm today and Tuesday 31st May, 9-3.30pm Wednesday 1st June, Edinburgh Steiner School, 60 Spylaw Road. All welcome. Image © Emma Hunter.
Picturehouses Toddler Time: exclusive short screenings for pre-school children and their parents and carers. 
Today: Messy Goes to Okido (U). A comedy adventure, science-educational show following a curious, lovable monster called Messy. Messy magically transports you from the real world to the land of Okido, where he finds the answers to his questions. 11am, Cameo, Home Street. Tickets cost £3 per child, accompanying adult free.
Grassmarket Community Cinema: Hobson’s Choice (U). Henry Hobson runs a successful boot maker’s shop in nineteenth century Salford. A widower with a weakness for the pub opposite, he tries forcefully to run the lives of his three unruly daughters. When he decrees ‘no marriages’ to avoid the expensive matter of settlements, his eldest daughter Maggie rebels and sets her sights on Will Mossup, Hobson’s star boot maker. David Lean’s directorial touch is technically assured, and although the play was dated even by the time of filming, it is beautifully constructed and its characters painted with such affection and performed so well that it remains a pleasure to watch time and time again. 7pm, Grassmarket Community Project, 86 Candlemaker Row. All welcome, free admission: donations very welcome! 
The Grassmarket Community Project is a charity providing mentoring, training and education to participants, many of whom are amongst the most vulnerable of Edinburgh’s citizens, in a nurturing environment. It operates a community cafe, woodwork and tartan social enterprises, and a range of social integration and educational activities for members, aimed at enhancing life skills and developing confidence. To read about The Edinburgh Reporter’s afternoon at the Project, click here.
Polish Bookbug – songs, stories and rhymes for children aged 0-4 and their parents and carers. 10.30am, McDonald Road Library, 2 McDonald Road. Free, all welcome – for more information contact the library on 0131 529 5636.
Hidden Door Festival – Alternative Orchestra Night. Tinderbox Orchestra with the Room To Play Project (an exciting new programme exploring interactive live and digital processes in music, art, performance and game-development), Mantra & Niall Moody with a live interactive game music production, Brave Little Note making lovely noise using electronics alongside real instruments and vocals, and local duo The Jellyman’s Daughter. 
Plus theatre, cinema, spoken word and poetry. Room to Play Project 12 noon-6pm, bands 7.30-10.30pm (for more details and individual timings click here), Hidden Door, King’s Stables Road. Free entry 12 noon-6pm, then ticketed 6pm-close (11pm). Tickets £10/£8 plus booking fee in advance from Brown Paper Tickets here or £12 on the door. Tickets allow access to all events happening today (but please note space for some events is limited, so places cannot be guaranteed). For full details of the festival programme, which continues until 4th June, click here.
TUESDAY 31ST MAY 2016
Picturehouses Discover Tuesdays: cult classics, and art-house gems and riveting documentaries – there’s always a chance to see something different and brilliant in the Cameo’s weekly slot. Today’s film is The Divide (12A). Inspired by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett’s bestselling book The Spirit Level, Katharine Round’s incisive documentary offers a more personal account of how inequality shapes our societies. 
It aims to unravel the mystery of why, despite increasing material wealth, social divisions and personal anxiety are increasing. The film weaves together thought-provoking, poignant stories of seven people that illustrate how economic shifts impact individuals’ lived experience and psychology. The narrative links people from around the world, including a busy Wall Street psychologist whose clients are battling breakdowns, a stressed fast-food worker struggling to survive, and a low-income carer who feels looked down upon. This absorbing film reveals a refreshing, close-up perspective on the human story behind economic inequality. 6pm, Cameo, Home Street. Tickets may be purchased from the Box Office in person, by calling 0871 902 5723 or online.
North Edinburgh Arts: Kraftworks. Professional artists will show you how to transform everyday recycled objects – this week’s project is Decoupage Furniture. For ages 16+. 10am-12 noon today and every Tuesday, North Edinburgh Arts, Pennywell Court, Muirhouse. Free, no booking required – just come along! For more information please call NEA on 0131 315 2151 or email admin@northedinburgharts.co.uk.
Leith Folk Club: Bob Wood. Bob Wood, something of an unsung guitar hero from the west of Scotland, is a warm and engaging solo singer and performer with an easy going sense of humour, often likened to the great Archie Fisher. A highly accomplished finger-style guitarist, his playing and song interpretations display a rare sensitivity, lightness of touch and great technique. ‘Basically, he’s brilliant’. Support: Allan & Carol Prior. 7.30pm, Victoria Park House Hotel, 221 Ferry Road. Tickets cost £8 and may be reserved by completing the online form here or texting the club’s dedicated booking line on 07502 024 852. Reserved tickets must be collected by 7.30pm on the night.
Blackwell’s Edinburgh Presents Kenny MacAskill: The Lockerbie Bombing. On 21 December 1988, Pan Am flight 103 departed London Heathrow for New York. Shortly after take-off a bomb detonated, killing all aboard and devastating the small Scottish town of Lockerbie below. 
Only one man, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, has ever been convicted of the crime, though few believe that he acted alone. In 2009 a request was made by Libya for al-Megrahi’s release from prison on compassionate grounds after he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. The decision to grant or deny that request fell squarely and exclusively on the shoulders of one man, Kenny MacAskill, Scotland’s Justice Secretary 2007-2014. Join Kenny for the launch of his definitive account of the atrocity and aftermath of the Lockerbie bombing. 6.30-8pm, Blackwell’s, South Bridge. Free tickets are available from the shop’s ground floor desk, by calling 0131 622 8222, emailing events.edinburgh@blackwell.co.uk or via eventbrite here.
G
ENERATE: if you’re 10-18 and interested in music, come along to WHALE’s free GENERATE sessions on Tuesdays! Drum kit, guitars and recording studio available – try song writing, live performing, recording and more, all with advice from professional musicians. No experience needed – all levels of ability welcome. 4.15-5.45pm, WHALE Arts, 30 Westburn Grove. For more information call WHALE on 0131 458 3267, email info@whalearts.co.uk or just drop in.
WEDNESDAY 1ST JUNE 2016
A chance to hear Fiona Bradley talk informally about Sara Barker’s exhibition CHANGE-THE-SETTING, looking at her work in the context of the Gallery’s programme. Sara Barker works on the boundary between sculpture, painting and drawing. 
Since beginning to exhibit her work in 2004, she has developed a visual language of paint, steel, aluminium, brass and glass, and a way of working which is meditative, focusing on memory, individual perception, and a blurring of line and colour. With its combination of new and existing work, this exhibition offers the opportunity to spend time learning the language of Barker’s art, enjoying how her objects change in relation both to you and to each other as you walk around and among them. 6pm, The Fruitmarket Gallery, 45 Market Street. Free but please book via Eventbrite here. Image © Sarah Barker.
Blackwell’s Edinburgh Presents Stuart Campbell: The Aeronaut’s Guide to Rapture. Ursule in 1864 lives the life of a kitchen skivvy in Paris. Dexter in 1965 is an American GI in Vietnam. Dante in 2015 is a Catholic priest in Palermo, Sicily. For Ursule the Prussians are closing in. For Dexter it’s the Vietcong. For Dante it is the mafia. How can they escape but, more than that, how can misery become rapture? In contemporary Britain a fourth person holds all the strings in his hands as he rises silently and gracefully above the earth. In this tour de force of imagination, Edinburgh author Stuart Campbell follows the brilliant John McPake and the Sea Beggars with a tale that defies time and gravity and takes the reader to a place few have ever been and from which fewer still return. 6.30-8pm, Blackwell’s, South Bridge. Free tickets are available from the shop’s ground floor desk, by calling 0131 622 8222, emailing events.edinburgh@blackwell.co.uk or via Eventbrite here.
Arabian Nights Volume 2: The Desolate One (cert tbc) (in Portuguese, English, French, German and Mandarin with English subtitles). The second part of Miguel Gomes’ trio has the decidedly more heart-rending theme of desolation, nicely offset once again by more peculiar stories and characters. These include Simáo the mass murderer on the run, a distressed judge presiding over a series of absurd cases, and Dixie the Maltese poodle, who is shuttled between dour owners living in a brutalist concrete nightmare. Housed within these wistful stories are some grim truths about economic paranoia and a society that has lost its impetus. 6pm, Filmhouse, Lothian Road. Tickets may be purchased from the Box Office in person, by calling 0131 228 2688 or online.
Poetry for Peanuts: sessions for wee ones and their grown-ups. The Poetry Library will supply the poetry books, tea and coffee. Share some poems with your children and meet other parents/carers who like poetry or want to give it a try. 10.30-11.30am, The Space, Scottish Poetry Library, Crichton’s Close. £2 per family: book via Eventbrite here. For more information call SPL on 0131 557 2876 or email reception@spl.org.uk.
Public Information: cool/hot funky/electric modern jazz from an Edinburgh 4-piece of great players. Originals and rearranged standards, plus some lesser-heard material by Ornette Coleman, Miles Davis et al, from Don Kelman (sax/flute), Iain Carleton (guitar), Ron Ballin (electric bass) and Desmond Travis (drums). 9pm (entry from 8pm), The Jazz Bar, Chambers Street. £5/£4 on the door: please note this venue is strictly cash only.
THURSDAY 2ND JUNE 2016
Picturehouses Big Scream: screenings exclusively for parents and carers with their babies under 12 months. Today’s film is Love and Friendship (U). Adapting Jane Austen’s novella Lady Susan, writer-director Whit Stillman has wrought a delicious, gorgeously staged comedy of romantic manners, with Kate Beckinsale and Chloe Sevigny – who also starred in another of Stillman’s razor-sharp, female-centric amusements, The Last Days Of Disco – a particular joy to behold. 10.30am, Cameo, Home Street. Tickets may be purchased from the Box Office in person, by calling 0871 902 5723 or online.
Glow Festival: Rhythm of Life – Musical Mash Up. Edinburgh College Musical Theatre students bring you an evening in which fairytales and big dreams collide, in a song and dance review featuring musical hits like Big Spender, If Momma Was Married and Giants in the Sky. 7pm, The Music Box, Edinburgh College Sighthill Campus, Bankhead Avenue. Tickets £3 + booking fee from Eventbrite here. 
Also at same time on Friday 3rd June. Part of Edinburgh College’s GLOW Festival, which gives Edinburgh the chance to enjoy performances and exhibitions from the College’s creative industries students, covering everything from music, theatre and dance to photography, sculpture, illustration, computing and much more. For more information about GLOW, click here.
Charlotte Keates: Exploiting Perspectives – A Harmony in Chaos. The London-based artist says that this exhibition ‘explores the idea of a lived-in space. It fuses both memory and imagination to creating a ‘dream-like’ world. I am aiming to push the boundaries of perceived space through the use of incongruous spatial constructions, whilst building a dialogue between interior with exterior in a convincing yet improbable manner. I hope for the spaces to elicit a sense of stillness, a peaceful and calm location of contemplation and thought.’ Plus new works by Emily Moore. Private view tonight 6-8pm,then 10am-5pm Monday to Saturday, 1-5pm Sundays, Arusha Gallery, 13a Dundas Street. Ends 26th June 2016.
Raphael Rubinstein – A Geniza. New York-based poet and art critic Raphael Rubinstein will read his fragment-poem A Geniza, recently published in an elaborately produced limited edition by Granary Books in New York. A Geniza uses numerous quotations and translations to evoke the 20th century Cairo of poet Edmond Jabès, singers and actresses Umm Kalthoum, Asmahan and Leila Mourad, and various other historical figures, with glances at the reality of present-day post-revolution Egypt. Inspired by Peter Cole and Adina Hoffman’s book, Sacred Trash: the Lost and Found World of the Cairo, Geniza, the poem takes its form from the chaotic archive of manuscripts accumulated over centuries in a storeroom of an ancient Cairo synagogue.
The poem also concerns itself with the idea of the fragment in modernist writing of Walter Benjamin, Maurice Blanchot and Jabès, with what happens to architecture and neighbourhoods as the society around them is transformed, and with Jewish-Arab history. This reading of A Geniza will occur in a random, never-to-be-repeated sequence; it coincides with Raphael Rubinstein’s unusual text-and-architecture experiment at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, in which, working with design duo Maeve Redmond and Sophie Dyer, Raphael will transpose short narratives from his book The Miraculous into an installation permeating the spaces of the building. 6.30-7.30pm, Scottish Poetry Library, Crichton’s Close. Tickets £5/£4 from Eventbrite here. The Miraculous will be at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Hawthornvale 4th June-31st August 2016 (closed Sundays). Ralph Rubinstein will give a talk about the exhibition and his wider artistic practice at 2pm on Saturday 4th June at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop. Image courtesy Raphael Rubinstein and Granary Books
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The Polar Bears Go Up. The Polar Bears are moving up in the world. They’ve lost their balloon and they need to get it back. It’s time to get up, step up, climb up, jump up. One thing’s for sure, the only way is up! These two lovable Polar Bears are intrepid explorers, famous for their wild expeditions. This time they’ll be climbing trees, jumping on clouds and reaching for the stars as they race all the way up to space. Of course, they’ll stop for sandwiches on the way! This show is suitable for deaf audiences. For ages 2-5. 2.30pm, Scottish Storytelling Centre, 43 High Street. Tickets £8/£6 or £24 for a family ticket from the Box Office in person, by calling 0131 556 9579 or online here. Also at 11am and 2.30pm on Friday 3rd June and Saturday 4th June. A Fish and Game /Unicorn production.
FRIDAY 3RD JUNE 2016
Recitals for Wrigglers: Dance for Summer. Recitals for Wrigglers was set up in 2014 by Clea and Louise, two classically trained musicians, with the aim of bringing classical music to as many pre-school age children as possible. Shows include short pieces of music, a story and an opportunity to become teeny percussionists too. 2pm, Morningside Parish Church, Braid Road/Cluny Gardens. Tickets £6 for 1 adult + 1 child, £3 for each additional child and £6 for each additional adult; early booking is strongly advised – email recitalsforwrigglers@gmail.com.
The British Pastel Revival. In the late nineteenth century, the use of pastels underwent a major revival across Europe and America. This surge in popularity was most pervasive amongst a generation of young artists who were striving for new styles and techniques, including in Britain William Stott of Oldham, James Guthrie and Joseph Crawhall. In this lecture Freya Spoor (Edinburgh College of Art) will take a closer look at their varying approaches revealing that they were all striving to align their creative vision with the special properties of the medium at hand. 12.45-1.30pm, Hawthornden Lecture Theatre, Scottish National Gallery, The Mound. Free and unticketed. Image: Women Working in a Field by Sir James Guthrie.
Collective Hush: if you keep meaning to put some time aside for reading and writing poetry each week, bring your lunch (if you like) and join this silent, drop-in group reading/ writing/ making time every Friday in The Space. Sharing the silence, everyone can work together to achieve their artistic and poetic goals. 12 noon-2pm, Scottish Poetry Library, Crichton’s Close. Free, drop-in, donations welcome.
Film: Tongues on Fire Presents The 1st Edinburgh Asian Film Festival. This pioneering event features the best films from the London Asian Film Festival (LAFF), Europe’s longest-running Asian cinema showcase, produced by non-profit organisation Tongues on Fire. EAFF 2016 offers viewers a bounty of border-breaking and boundary-pushing cinema, featuring Yemen’s first female filmmaker and spotlighting the burgeoning Pakistani and Indian indie film sectors. EAFF’s exhilarating cocktail of compelling, uplifting and thought-provoking stories guarantees cross-cultural appeal – take this opportunity to experience a diverse kaleidoscope of Asian films, previously inaccessible to Edinburgh audiences. The festival’s Creative Director is Dr. Ashvin Immanuel Devasundaram, author of India’s New Independent Cinema: Rise of the Hybrid. 
Tonight’s opening film is I Am Nojoom, Age 10 and Divorced/Ana Nojoom bent alas herah wamotalagah (15) (in Arabic with English subtitles). Khadija Al-Salami’s award-winning film explores the clash between tribal customs and modern-day attitudes in contemporary Yemen. This is the true story of Nojoom, a young girl growing up in a small village; everything changes when her father marries her off to settle family debts; unprepared to live in an abusive relationship, 10-year old Nojoom runs away. The ensuing courtroom battle sends shockwaves into the community and beyond. The screening will be preceded by an introduction from special guest Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, MP for Ochil and South Perthshire, and followed by a Q&A with Oxfam speaker Grace Ommer (former Country Director, Yemen). 8.30pm, Filmhouse, Lothian Road. Tickets may be purchased from the Box Office in person, by calling 0131 228 2688 or online. Further films in this series will screen on Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th June.
Piccante Jazz Quintet: Drummer/Arranger Ken Mathieson is well known for this excellent Classic Jazz Orchestra 10-piece ensemble, but here brings in his 5-piece of top players to showcase his repertoire of arranged jazz standards, along with some Brazilian music, from his time spent in that country. Ken is with top trumpeter Colin Steele, dynamic SNJO alto sax player Martin Kershaw, piano star Paul Harrison, and outstanding bassist Brian Shiels. 9pm (entry from 8pm), The Jazz Bar, Chambers Street. £5/£4 on the door: please note this venue is strictly cash only.
And finally… want to get out of Edinburgh this weekend? Try these:
3 Harbours Arts Festival: a mere bus ride away, this festival takes place in various venues – from church halls to terraced houses – in the East Lothian coastal villages of Port Seton, Prestonpans and Cockenzie. Exhibiting artists include Jill Macleod, Ritchie Collins, Ronnie Fulton and Janet McCrorie. The festival, which continues all week, also includes poetry, music, kite making, guided walks, storytelling, art workshops, a craft fair, ukulele workshop, seafood festival, ‘Boatie Blest’ come and try rowing sessions and lots more – for full programme see the festival’s website here. Ends Sunday 12th June.
Brew at the Bog – this one involves a bit more of a journey! Line-up includes Idelwild, Sandra Macbeth, Colonel Mustard & The Dijons, Blue Rose Code, Adam Holmes, Blazin’ Fiddles and many more, plus comedy, outdoor cinema, art, and bars for all tastes… Transport is available from Inverness to the site (£5 per journey) and must be booked in advance, along with tickets, through the festival website here. Over 18s only, and no dogs allowed. Gates open 1pm (campsite 11am) Friday 3rd June, music ends 12 midnight Saturday 4th June (campsite closes 12 noon Sunday 5th June), Bogbain Farm, Inverness IV2 5BD.